Hillary Clinton’s campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri said she believes Republican Super PAC money is more concerning than the millions of dollars flowing into the Clinton Foundation from foreign governments and companies.
Palmieri spoke on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show to defend Clinton’s questionable actions during her time as Secretary of State. When pressed on why the Clinton Foundation will continue to accept foreign money despite protests, Palmieri diverted to tout the charitable work the foundation engages in.
"These are programs that do life-saving work," Palmieri said.
Palmieri explained the Foundation will continue to accept money from six nations, and will report the donations on a quarterly basis
"I think that strikes an appropriate balance between what people should know—to have a right to know about how this foundation is operating given that she is a candidate, but continue to let the Foundation do the really good work that it is doing."
Clinton has been under heavy condemnation for her apparent conflict of interest. Her foundation accepted millions of dollars from foreign entities that stood to benefit from decisions Clinton made at the State Department. Similarly, Bill Clinton received giant sums of cash for his speaking fees, which conveniently tripled once his wife was in Foggy Bottom.
Transparency groups have labeled the Clinton Foundation a "slush fund." A number of other watchdog groups have expressed deep concern over revelations they described as "problematic." The damaging reports keep coming, mostly stemming from Peter Schweizer’s upcoming book, Clinton Cash.
"Is it not unaccountable money to allow foreign governments to continue to donate to these six funds no matter how much good work they are doing in the world, when that becomes potentially a funnel for interests that want something from the United States government?" Lehrer asked Palmieri. "Is that not unaccountable money?"
Palmieri deflected Lehrer’s question.
"No. What’s unaccountable money is money that’s not disclosed. So with unaccountable money is money going into Super PACs, particularly on the Republican side, that we don’t know where the money is coming from," Palmieri said.